My time in Europe is nearly at an end. The history of Europe is always impressive to someone from a country such as Australia with relatively recent European settlement. North Americans I have spoken to one the trip seem to mostly share a similar feeling.
As an example, I type this from our Genovese AirBNB property, which was built in the 1200’s. It is right in the centre of the old city part of Genoa, with very narrow alleyways and all the charm you’d expect of such a place.
I learned today that many of the features of banking developed here, cheques apparently were first used in Genoa, and some of the earliest Stock-market trading was conducted here.
But one thing history shows time and again is the impermanence of prosperity. Wealthy societies always seem to eventually go into retreat. Usually this seems to coincide with a wilful ruler who flippantly treats the source of prosperity as some sort of bottomless well and either spends too heavily on some ornamental buildings that add little to the productive advancement of the society, or pours money into social projects that offer little prospect of similar productivity gains. We always seem to forget that it is the increase in productivity that allows us to live better than our predecessors.
Prosperity must be pursued alongside prudence if it is to last, but as you have no hope of controlling from beyond the grave such behaviour, the best you can do is ensure you conduct your own affairs with prudence in this life and that perhaps it sets an example some others may choose to follow.
Our benchmark ASX200 had its first weekly increase for calendar 2016. Unfortunately, we were slightly down on the week, but had the opportunity to deploy some cash advantageously and had a couple of late profit upgrades that should hold the upgraded stocks in good stead if the current rough patch continues for the market – Tony Hansen 22/01/2016
|
|
Apr 1st 2011 |
Jul 1st 2015 |
Current Price |
Since July 1st 2015 |
Since Inception |
|
EGP Fund No. 1 |
1.00000 |
1.57872 |
1.62346*1 |
2.83% |
90.94%*2 |
|
37333.23 |
50922.68 |
47757.80 |
(6.22%) |
27.92% |
EGP Fund No. 1 Pty Ltd. Up by 2.83%, leading the benchmark by 9.05% since July 1st 2015. Since inception, EGP Fund No. 1 Pty Ltd is Up by 90.94%, leading the benchmark by 63.02% all-time (April 1st 2011).
*1 after a 31 May 2013 dividend of 2.333 cents per share (cps) plus 1.000 cps Franking Credit, a 31 May 2014 Dividend of 7.000 cps plus 3.000 cps Franking Credit and a 31 May 2015 Dividend of 8.6667 cps plus 3.7143 cps Franking Credit
*2 calculated based on dividends reinvested
